After Barack Obama used social media to boost his campaign for the White House, and Kevin Rudd experimented with Twitter and Youtube three years ago, I was genuinely hoping this federal election would be the great social media election.
But nope-- the major parties in the Australian federal election have reverted to old mainstream media spin which relies on one way messages via newspaper and television gatekeepers.
Oh what a lost opportunity.
The great promise of social media was that politicians would use the vast number of online tools to have a more intimate dialogue with the engaged and upwardly mobile population.
And that requires more than the infrequent tweet!
Critics say that the concept of conversation via digital platforms is a myth because there's just not enough time to answer every person's tweet or post. This is true-- you can't answer every single tweet but social media is consumed in a personal way, and the sent messages can bypass gatekeepers such as commentators and reporters. The message sender (politician) can construct the message in an informal, open, way.
The message receiver (voter) gets to see, hear, examine messages about policy promises.
Effective social media campaigns require a web of social media referral. By Social Media Referral I mean a careful cross promotion of messages on multiple platforms.
Let me use a hypothetical example of what I call SMR.
Politician John Smith sets up a Facebook Page. He makes sure it includes photos of his campaign activities from his Flickr account. He also makes sure it's updated three times a day with personal campaign video diaries filed on YouTube about policy, intentions, promises and reflections. John Smith then posts those updates via twitter. He also retweets and comments on a number of follower tweets during the day. Some of John Smith's tweets are about campaign policy, but many are personal reflections on what is and isn't working in the campaign. John Smith adds a public Google map to show the many events or campaign walk-abouts carried out during the election.
John Smith very carefully reads the comments on his Facebook page and responds to any 'themes' that emerge (rather than responding to every individual concern about a particular issue).
The other necessity is Social Media Unique Content.
There's an opportunity for political candidates to refute, rebuff and challenge the claims opponents make about facets of the campaign by using long form diary entries or videos. Give us opinion and content that the mainstream media is not focussing on. I've included links to the three leaders' Facebook pages. They're interesting... but they're not likely to drive the agenda or conversation, because most of the content is stuff rehashed from the same television, newspaper messages.
Just imagine an effective use of all social media tools! Labour intensive? Of course! More effective than travelling all over the joint talking to 12 journos? Possibly. No politician I'm aware of is using multi-platform social media referral in a way that truly opens the campaign and allows voters a genuine inside look at how policy's being made. But then again, maybe that has more to do with the fact that neither party wants focus on policy detail.
Maybe soundbites and picture opportunities get all the leaders off the hook.
Put them to the test.
Here are the Facebook links for Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Bob Brown.
